Isn't It Great To Be Savvy?

Updated Below

Yesterday I came across a fascinating compilation of various establishment media outlets' recommendations about what viewers should heed in last night's vice presidential debate.  The compilation was fascinating not for its substance (there was none), but for its exclusive focus on style.  Have a look yourself:  here's CNN, Politico, Reuters, USA Today, and The Washington Post, each recommending the most important things they can come up with about what American voters should attend to in a vice presidential debate.

Now, I'm not sure why these so-called journalists believe what should matter most to voters is whether "Biden can draw blood" or whether "Ryan will let his feel-your-pain-flag fly" (as opposed to, say, whether the candidates believe the president has the right to unilaterally start wars, imprison and execute citizens without due process, etc).  It could be because the media outlets in question are so shallow they're on the verge of evaporating.  It could be they recognize that what the Democratic and Republican parties have in common so eclipses the parties' differences that virtually the only meaningful distinctions one can make are about style.  It could be sloth.  It could be a combination of the foregoing.

The best explanation I've come across for the American establishment media's obsession with trivia is from media critic and NYU professor Jay Rosen, who argues that the true ideology of the establishment media is a devotion to savvy.  Who cares whether a policy is substantively good or bad?  The only thing worth considering is whether articulating the policy will be an effective political tactic.  Who cares if a politician lies?  What matters is whether the lie was clever.

And Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian has a related column today, analyzing the obscured but enormous biases of the moderator of last night's vice presidential debate.

As interesting as it is to speculate about the origins of the establishment media's ostensibly objective, trivia-obsessed worldview, we should also note its pernicious effect, which is to train the citizenry to not question whatever America's two major parties agree on (which is almost everything), and to believe style is more important than substance.  I'm continually amazed -- and depressed -- at the way citizens ape the values of the establishment media that feeds them their news.  By way of anecdotal example, a month or so ago I was trapped in small talk at a dinner party table and, to save myself, asked the other guests who they'd be voting for in November (yes, you're right, you probably don't want to invite me to a dinner party).  Since the party was in the Bay Area, I wasn't surprised that everyone planned to vote for Obama.  I then asked what everyone thought was the worst thing Obama had done as president.  The response was fascinating:  with one exception, my dinner companions talked only about style and tactics.  Obama shouldn't have given Congress so much leeway in crafting health insurance reform legislation.  He should have been harder on Mitch McConnell.  Etc.  I asked, What about Obama's illegal, unconstitutional war in Libya?  This too produced an interesting response:  rather than arguing that, say, the war wasn't illegal or unconstitutional, everyone reflexively claimed that the war was well executed and had a good outcome.  Even if all that were true, where did these otherwise well-educated American citizens get their notion that whether a policy is smart is more important than whether it's legal?  Or that failing to criticize Mitch McConnell is worse than unilaterally executing a 16-year-old American citizen, or failing to prosecute even a single banker for fraud, or a single politician for ordering torture?

Watch CNN, or pick up the Washington Post, or examine any other establishment media organ, and you'll have your answer.

Update:  Seeking to prove my point, here's the New York Times' front page article on last night's debate.  The headline:  "Show of Teeth Spurs a Debate Over Biden."  The lede:  "Thursday’s vice-presidential slugfest has quickly become a debate about Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s grin."  As though the Times' own coverage has nothing to do with what the "debate" is about.